Chapter 28

The DDs of 119 returned. They were taken out to Ferguson's and underwent a quick refurbishment. That was all that was needed as the RMN had maintained the vessels during their time in Andrew. Being suspicious, Denny had checked that Holeinspace and Period were still fitted and found them as per the original equipping during the convoy years. Denny replaced the sets with newer equipment. The original crews claimed precedence of appointments. The 'surplus' Captains were allowed to borrow the vessels for exercises to maintain ship handling skills in the larger vessels from time to time.

However they and the more occupied Captains had another interest; one, Algernon Hardman. His 'Crusher' For the next twelve weeks Algy could never decide when he was awake or asleep. Whilst the course was longer, there was the added knowledge for A.V. "Vector" although the Captains were only just ahead of him by earlier access to the manuals. Algy managed to push Tony Pearson and Gregor Kowalski to the bulkhead and both had to work very hard to stay in front. All did manage to survive.

Felix Arbuthson came up with another development. DDD had indeed been paranoid. His Admiral's Barge was hypercapable and had Renmark power plant equipment fitted. Some bright person in an architect's office had noticed the advertisements in prewar brochures for small fission piles and i/cs from Renmark and made a few enquiries of the agents on Old Earth. Yes, there were two on hand; no they had never been fired up; no one knew how, no one had ever expressed an interest, fission piles frightened everyone and yes you can have them at cost. So DDD was informed that he had a Barge which had the power to go hyper but no one had tried it. Felix mentioned this at a meeting of the Flock and Polack immediately excused himself to begin the procedure for bringing up the piles. He did at least remove the Barge well away from "Vector" using Algy in "Shriek" as the tug. Polack then, of course, took the Barge for trials, sitting alone in the pilot's cabin transmitting down to "Shriek" which is what Slow did when she heard; no one was sure whether it was because Polack did the start up by himself, did the trials or went through the layer or what combination of sins. Polack's excreta eating grin was in evidence again.

The power plants were somewhat less powerful than those in "Shriek" but McCock was not concerned as the Barge was not weaponed. McCock had her fitted with Period and Holeinspace; he had his passenger runabout.

There was a surprise when Sam Costello turned up; Nancy Alma Nancarrow accompanied him as his Foreign Office adviser. Elizabeth's fine hand was seen in this but not malevolently so. It was accepted as the graceful gesture it was meant to be. Besides Nan's experience in Foreign Office despite being on the Renmark desk would be of benefit in analysis.

Bollinger's Boys (and girl) were quickly into it. Three streams of Chencon traffic were identified. The first was the largest and consisted of myriad encoded systems originating from commercial interests; these were identified as far as possible and then put aside for Sir Joshua's attention at his convenience. The second was probably the diplomatic within which was two patterns — a lightly encrypted 'general' interest news cast bringing all embassies up to date on matters thought significant by Foreign Office and the second, a high level encryption signal in which several more patterns could be discerned, one of which Costello thought was one-time pads. He was not going to waste his time on those despite the information to be gained being of the highest importance. The third stream was 'defence' with embeds again; a general 'bumpf' channel and a tight burst encrypted signal probably carrying the most important messages.

Resources available on U94, particularly when the SC was deployed, allowed a rough approximation of the position of the origin of the signals. Yin Sung had identified the Capitol and the major Naval bases both dirtside and orbital. With the added information from the SC's passive detectors, a picture of the Chencon Navy both wet and space was being gathered.

The wet navy was going about what appeared to be its usual duties.

The space fleets were being reorganised. What was Chencon Home Space Fleet was being reinforced by heavy elements from the three force projecting peripheral fleets, Midpac, Rusiberia and Noram and these were being replaced by cruisers.

Comparison with Naval Dock activity over Eurocon, Enkland, Canal, and Noracom disclosed a high level of activity in the Chencon Naval Docks even allowing for the size of that fleet. Major elements were being 'touched up' A major fleet activity was apparently being planned.

This activity was not unnoticed on Old Earth and other navies began playing catch up.

The material was considered by the full GmBH Board and one thing was very clear was that whatever was going down in Chencon was more than was required for an investigation of the damage at New Liege.

Costello organised his information for dispatch to Settlement. He met with McCock in the Captain's Cabin and raised a difficulty,

"Commodore, we haven't got a way to get this information to Renmark or Amiranti in a timely fashion."

McCock contemplated him for a moment and then waved him to a chair. Reaching into the small of his back under his frock coat, he produced a plain cased PDA into which he inserted a key stick and then punched in a number from memory,

"McCock here, can I speak to your principal, please."

The remembered voice came back to him in strictly neutral tones,

"Yes, Commodore?"

"Good morning, Sam Costello tells me he does not know of a way to have recent information sent to Renmark or Amiranti."

"That's true for Amiranti. We have just not been able to raise him."

"Have you tried using a UVA above the northern end of the wormhole and using the link from there."

"I haven't been able to get a UVA freed up from the Navy and I'd rather not make too big a shouting match. I'm told that no more are forthcoming from the supplier."